True, Dems may pay a price if they succeed. But so will the nation — in terms of a sapped economic recovery, further job losses, lower-quality, rationed health care and, of course, monster taxes.

Today, for example, Sen. Max Baucus’ Finance Committee plans to release the last of five health-care bills floating around the Capitol. And President Obama plans to take to the airwaves (yet again) on Sunday to push his plan.

Surely lawmakers have a Sisyphean task ahead in trying to meld those bills into a single, passable package. Still, Vice President Joe Biden vows a bill will go to the White House before Thanksgiving.

Dems, you see, are simply dismissing the protests — and all the tea parties and town-hall meetings over the past weeks — as artificial noise. They may regret it.

They urged an immediate curb to federal spending — citing not just Dems, but also the GOP’s profligate spending.

The rally failed to garner the media attention that would have been given to, say, a similar protest against the Iraq war — but that doesn’t lessen its importance. Warned Andrew Moylan of the National Taxpayers Union, “Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored.”

Should Dems continue with their massive spending, taxing and borrowing — led by a massive expansion of taxpayer-financed health care — they may well learn that lesson at the polls next year.